{"id":4612,"date":"2022-04-07T15:13:52","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T22:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/how-health-care-can-go-green\/"},"modified":"2023-11-19T12:51:52","modified_gmt":"2023-11-19T20:51:52","slug":"how-health-care-can-go-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/how-health-care-can-go-green\/","title":{"rendered":"How health care can go green"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\n\n \n Press Release<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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How health care can go green<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
\n Wayne Lewis<\/span>\n \n April 07, 2022<\/span>\n <\/div>\n \n \n
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Keck School of Medicine of USC researchers seek sustainability solutions and advocate for change<\/h5>\n

For physician-scientist Howard Hu, the irony is hard to take.<\/p>\n

The same medical community that makes its mission to improve health also substantially contributes to climate change, a global threat with numerous, widespread detriments to health. In the U.S. alone, the health care industry accounts for between 8 and 10 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe contribution to emissions is huge,\u201d said Hu, MD, MPH, ScD, holder of the Flora L. Thornton Chair in Preventive Medicine and chair and professor of population and public health sciences<\/a> at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. \u201cThat insight became a clarion call for us to do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That spur to action has added a new line of study for his research efforts, which also focuses on revealing the effects of pollution on human health. As an outgrowth of his recent work related to climate change, Hu has organized colleagues from across multiple disciplines to examine the medical industry\u2019s impact \u2014 and uncover potential solutions. The effort involves not only rigorous science, but also advocacy to engage more and more health workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are currently very few health care professionals at the grassroots level who are aware of this issue, and that needs to change,\u201d Hu said. \u201cThe push to decarbonize health care won\u2019t truly gain traction until the larger health care community see this as a major problem that must be dealt with, and incorporate that into their ethos as caregivers.\u201d<\/p>\n

His own caregiver\u2019s ethos is at the core of Hu\u2019s motivation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all want to save patients and improve patient care,\u201d he said. \u201cDoing it in a sustainable way \u2014 constantly looking for opportunities to lower our carbon footprint \u2014 is part of our responsibility to our patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

The many faces of carbon emissions in the medical industry<\/p>\n

Just as his mission to help decarbonize health care was driven by a revelation, Hu was first drawn to issues around climate change and human health when he and other researchers began to grapple with the scope of harm.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became very clear that the problem of greenhouse gases was much bigger than just heating the atmosphere,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are impacts on how lands turn to desert, on rainfall and on wildfires, of course \u2014 as we\u2019re seeing. With all the concrete and asphalt in urban environments without much tree cover, there are \u2018heat islands\u2019 in underserved communities right here in Los Angeles. And there are broader changes in patterns of infectious disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certain aspects of how hospitals contribute to this predicament seem intuitive. These are facilities that stay open 24 hours a day, every day, with high-powered machinery that\u2019s crucial for care. As a result, the medical sector is a big consumer of energy.<\/p>\n

Other aspects are less visible, in their way. Hospitals are also tied to the energy-intensive construction industry due to the frequency of building and renovating \u2014 lately to add ICU space to prepare for COVID-19 surges. But that connection also offers the chance to partner with builders in cutting carbon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity to incorporate sustainability practices in all of these construction plans is huge,\u201d Hu said.<\/p>\n

It turns out, however, that the largest part of the problem is close to invisible. The medical world incurs its greatest carbon debt through supplies, especially for single use, as well as pharmaceuticals, anesthetic gases and elements of their operations such as waste management. According to Hu, the approach for mitigation will require focus and widespread cooperation.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to cross many disciplines to understand the carbon footprint of each of these activities,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s also going to take some deep diving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, he and collaborators in his department have joined forces with USC economics and architecture faculty in projects to get a handle on health care\u2013derived carbon emissions and decarbonize the industry.<\/p>\n

Priority one is health and well-being<\/p>\n

To forestall any misunderstanding, Hu is crystal clear on one point.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuality of care is nonnegotiable,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can\u2019t ever fall into a trap where there\u2019s some sense that we\u2019re shortchanging patients. Every aspect of this movement is to optimize health. In fact, we can improve it while pursuing a sustainability agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example,\u201d Hu continued, \u201cthe 65-fold increase in telehealth that has occurred during the pandemic has actually improved access and some aspects of primary care and mental health services while forgoing the carbon emissions associated with transporting patients to medical centers.\u201d<\/p>\n

As another example, having a hospital fill all of its energy needs from renewable sources would have no conceivable downside for its patients. And that change would reduce harms to health from emissions at the same time.<\/p>\n

Recently, Keck Medicine entered into a larger alliance for sustainable health care, Practice Greenhealth. This network of hospitals and medical centers are pursuing sustainability, using common measures to track their progress and sharing best practices.<\/p>\n

Hu sees the opportunity for USC to have impact in the communities it serves as well as far beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe intend to use Keck Medicine\u2019s evolution toward a sustainable health care enterprise as a sort of laboratory,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll work with our colleagues to create innovative solutions to accelerate the whole movement toward sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, as with many initiatives to reduce or eliminate the human contribution to climate change, the time for inaction is well past.<\/p>\n

Hu said: \u201cWe\u2019re beyond the point of saying, \u2018Geez, are carbon emissions bad?\u2019 We need to figure out which best practices that will move the needle. In medicine, we have a moral obligation on some level to ensure that we\u2019re not killing people while saving them because we\u2019re adding to global warming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sustainability in health care is one of many topics to be explored during Earth Week 2022 on the Health Sciences Campus, planned in collaboration with the Keck School\u2019s Environmental Justice special interest group for students and the Master of Public Health Student Association. For more about Earth Week panels, events and social media initiatives, visit the USC Office of Sustainability<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For physician-scientist Howard Hu, the irony is hard to take. The same medical community that makes its mission to improve health also substantially contributes to climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":4613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[190],"class_list":["post-4612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-release","tag-earth-day"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow health care can go green<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/how-health-care-can-go-green\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How health care can go green\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For physician-scientist Howard Hu, the irony is hard to take. 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